tvgos contact. she is really nice and is doing everything she can. be nice to her. cheryl roblee 1 800 386 7380 option 2 option 5
Left the machine on all day on Sunday to record what I wanted. The unit stayed on after the recording and was on when I got home.(turning the timer off recording to off worked. Thank you to one on the list with that information) The hard drive was sleeping and everything was good. (Thank you Video Bob for reminding us not to leave a disk in the drive when not needed) I did put the unit in standby for the night and no U99 this morning. Not taping anything to day so I left it in standby and will check when I get home. Keith Insight in KY - 42104
Update from Columbus, GA DMR-E85H, plugged into a UPS. Mediacom cable. No box. U99's started this past week 10/10. All have been while it is in standby. I'm the only user of this recorder. Came home wednesday night to find it with a U99 showing. Hit the power button on the remote and it turned off, then when it was turned on, it seemed to be reset, (didn't have any of the setup info, zip code, etc.) Put all that info back in then turned it off. Came home Sat morning to find that it had another U99, but apparently it retained all the info. At that point I discovered this thread and updated the firmware. (hadn't read through to the point where the TVGOS started being discussed) Since then it has had a U99 every morning.
Hi, RX7Fan Unfortunately, I don't think they did fix it! I got 3 day without U99 but still no listing and U99 this morning. I strongly suspect that they don't have a clue what causing this U99. I also think Panasonic should release the new Firmware which at last should give you option to automatically reboot the unit after U99. :-( Sparc21
Sparc21, All indications are that the "fix" at this time has only been rolled out to Oklahoma City. After TVGOS verifies that they have corrected this bug, it is to be rolled out everywhere this/next week.
If anyone else is interested, I asked Cheryl this morning about the "MSNBC Connection" - Why does TVGOS seem to seek out and use MSNBC on our Panasonic recorders?
Alabama 36066, Knology Cable with cable box, E85H: I had to do a hard reset last Thursday night about 10:00 and have not had a U99 since. Currently, I have full listings except for this coming Thursday. Number of promotions listed is 12. So far, so good. Also, have recorded several programs from TVGOS.
Yet again another U99 first thing this Monday morning... seems my Panny doesn't like Monday mornings, other than that it's been ok. Getting both adverts and listings - although the listings only went out as far as this Wednesday to 7.30pm. Just got to be patient I guess.... Interestingly my TWC digital cable box 'burped' early Sunday morning and had to be reset. This prevented the Panny from recording a program at 3am.... Unrelated to U99's though I guess.
VideoBob: thanks for your recommnedations; however, it looks that nothing was applicable for my case. 1. I unpacked a completely new unit - Recordable DVD Home Theater System SC-HT1500 (it's probably a combination of DMR-E95H and SC-HT1000) from the box, 2. made all proper connections, 3. turned on the unit, 4. did setting for TV Guide, 5. switched for a few seconds channels to see how IR Blaster works (it was for the first time I had recorder with TVGOS and IR Blaster) 6. had completely empty HDD and no DVD-R or DVD-RAM in DVD drive. 7. turned the unit off (approx. 11:00PM on TUE 10/04/2005). I woke up in the morning 10/05/2005 - and here you go U99 on the display. I already have DMR-E80H (without TVGOS), and I have never seen U99 on the display for over 2 years (and my HDD is almost 99% full, never formatted, and many times left DVD-R or DVD-RAM in DVD drive.) For 8 days, all I got except U99 3-4 times per day, was channel lineup once after a few days. Then I typed bogus ZIP 00000 to be able use timer recording manually. And it worked. I did a lot of factory resets - channel up/down with unplugging the unit for a couple of minutes. Yesterday, I did channel up/down reset again at 10:00PM. Today, I woke up to see U99 on the display at 6:45AM. However, I do have cahnnel lineup, but ni listing or ads. It looks that I will continue to use bogus ZIP 00000 until TVGOS will be fixed. P.S.: New model (like SC-HT1500) seems to work slowly than DMR-E80H. SC-HT1500 reads inserted DVD-R or DVD-RAM much longer, Disc Navigator take longer time to be loaded on the screen, etc. DMR-E80H is much faster in many functions/features.
The other thing which I haven't heard much people talk about it about the TV itself. Even if it works for a couple of days it is worthless. When my TV went out on me I had already programed in several Shows. After the TV listing went I still had the shows listed in my schedule however it had ?? before and after the program name. Until they get it fixed for longer than one week it is still useless. Additionally, it sounds like Gemstar is the company that screwed up since I know in my case (and various others) I had no problems until around Sept of this year which is the date that supposedly Gemstar took over TV Guide.
[bold]Coyote24: [/bold] I believe that in large metro markets such as mine (Southern California), it is inevitable that there will be multiple host channels. There should be one for broadcast, and another for basic cable stations. The first *must* be available for *EVERYONE* in the area, the second for most basic cable subscribers (but needn't contain all of the subscription information). I have heard before that the Pannys search for the information in the order they are listed in your guide (why I move PBS to the top). If your unit finds a broadcast- or Basic-Customized host first, that's the guide you will get. I don't know if it then moves on and looks for another, but postings to this forum indicate it probably does. I have found that simply changing the order of the three PBS stations at the top of my listing will change the amout and detail of the data downloaded. There are also host stations (by necessity) that include *all* (or at least most) of the stations available in a givem market for premium cable subscribers. These download *SO* much data that, if you don't disable all of the channels you don't want, you will run out of time/room and listings will be dropped and/or abbreviated. (Ever wonder why some channels have detailed listings and others dont? Try moving the short-listed channel to the top.). Although each level up the food chain (Broadcast->Limited Basic->Basic->Expanded Analog->Digital) ususally includes all of the stations in the lower-level packages, they do *not* necessarily put them on the same channels! Thus, in my area, at least one of the download hosts only downloads "Limited Basic" which has less than half the stations as my Basic--and many of them are on different channels. If I ever find which station this is, I'm going to move it to the BOTTOM of my program listings. BTW, I didn't disable *all* of the download stations--I had disabled MSNBC and the two channels that my diagnostic screen *said* were download channels (but I didn't know it at the time). I have since turned those stations back on and moved them to the top--and now have full listings. bob
To RX7 No, the service menu is the same on all the DMR-E units and it is mainly for checking the status of the machine. You can browse in other words but don't touch as they would say. Has anyone heard anything from Cheryl yet? I still haven't enabled my guide yet. I can't take the chance since I have shows being recorded.
Video Bob I did do the channel pruning that you suggested last night. I moved all of the grayed (not used) channels to 111. Really cleans up the view. I still need to move the two PBS stations to the top and see if that makjes a difference. Now for the question. At this time I have not done a TVGOS reset. If I do does this change the line up and everything I've moved? No sense re-arranging everything and then losing all of the changes if I have to do a reset. Thanks
[bold]BudinMA:[/bold] Gemstar has owned TV Guide AND tvgos for years. It's recently announce major changes to the magazine and has also recently (the last few weeks) made substatial changes to its TVGOS download datastream. The communications problems that *CAUSE* the U99 Errors in the Pannasonic PVRs appear to be Gemstar's fault. The U99 Errors themselves, their symptoms, and recovery are all in the bailiwick of Panasonic. We tend to treat them equally here--trying to figure out *which* is to for our problems. Actually, each company is *partially* right for blaming the other: Panny wouldn't be having U99 Errors if Gemstar hadn't screwed up its datastream. On the other hand, "Communications Errors" (i.e. U99 for Pannys) should *NOT* be hard faults and should be self-correcting. How any error is handled is part of the error-handling routines inside the Panny and Gemstar has no control over the recovery process--or any contributing factors such as heat, drive condition, and DVD drivers that might complicate the recovery process and/or intesify the symptoms and severity of the "Crash." There are already obvious levels of U99 errors, because some wipe out everything, some wipe out nothing, and other do varying amounts of damage. No one has built a matrix for conditions vs. symptoms, and I doubt if it would be worth doing at this point. However, *TRENDS* in errors reported here indicate that *ALL* of the various conditions addresed in my Protocol have *some* effect on whether the unit crashes and/or how much damage is done by any specific crash. The more factors involved, the more frequent and damaging the crashes. (Obviously *some* are even caused by defective hardware like boards and drives--just not nearly as many as Panny wants you to believe). If Panny had proper error-handling algorythms, "U99 Errors" would simply be logged, repaired, and the process restarted without any loss of prior information or user intervention. Such logging *should* include sufficient information to isolate which host, datastream, and datum *caused* the error in the first place. A routine to identify and report to the end user, the station, channel, and data type of all available host stations would be a *very* valuable addition to *any* TVGOS recorder--and could be implemented using information already available from the current datastream itself--without the need for further Gemstar involvement. Another valuable "Feature" missing from the Panasonic (and relatively easy to add at the factory) would be the ability to "Save" (Back-up) and "Restore" all volatile user data to DVD-R/-RAM--including setup information, channel line-up, and (optionally) current listings at the time of the Back-up. This makes completing a full factory reset and recovery (including repopulating the Guide) a matter of an hour or two's work--rather than days. They could even include any upgrades installed, making recovery a one-step process. bob
[bold]kossello:[/bold] In a word, "Yes." Wouldn't it be great if we could back up this data--like I suggested in my last post? Normally, No. However, you've done so much allready that it would be a shame to lose programming for lack of a horseshoe nail. You may not even *need* to reset, if you get the right combination. bob
Shaolin, Got a voice mail from here a while ago, unfortunately, I'm in class the next 3 weeks, so my posts will be a littel sporadic, I'm on my way home in a minute, and should be posting in about an hour or so with details on the latest (2or 3 PM)download of data, so far since thursday or friday, everything has been smooth , albeit slow, I was up to wed eve this morning, and had sat and sun filled, with promos, so I'm hoping to see thur and fri when I get home.
Ok, like right after my previous post, Cheryl emailed me. She wants to know my Host Version info via service menu. I'll do it tonight when I get home.
Shaolin and RX7, Based upon Cheryl's instructions, this should be 970DL. She's asking us to put it into Service mode and hit 02 (at least that is what she asked me to do). Once we do that, we will lose what listings and scheduled recordings we have, right? Hey, it's not that I mind losing that for her if it can help with getting this fix out to everyone, just thinking there is no reason to reset everything when I already know the firmware version. I know that TVGOS can update their firmware (.11 code), but their stuff shouldn't be able to update the unit firmware (requires CD image), right? Well, I asked her this and will post the reply.
